Picture courtesy of Tantra Revelations
If you went to an erotic film festival, what would you expect to see?
By Chris Armagon
With open lovemaking on screen, watched by an equally open and curious audience, Tanta Revelations are an erotic arts company seeking to change people’s hearts, minds and ultimately their experience of the most sacred parts of our intimacy.
On a warm autumn weekend in October, Tara Yoga Centre, itself a bastion of healthy erotic education expressed through tantric spirituality, hosted a Hungarian arts company in a festival of cinematic splendour and eros.
Men’s experience around intimacy on screen can take many different forms. For the men of the 1980s it meant visiting a certain section of the video shop followed by a hasty shuffle to the rental counter and an even hastier retreat to the exit. For the men and boys of the ’90s it was an agonisingly slow download process of a grainy picture over dial up internet.
The current day man has no such worries, however. He need only open his laptop, hit somewhere near the top of his Google history, and a world of sleaze awaits…
It’s causing some problems. According to the American Institute for Boys and Men, in their 2026 study more than 80% of American men report lifetime exposure to pornography. In turn this links to lower quality relationships, decreased sexual satisfaction and higher levels of gender objectification. Perhaps more concerning is that some studies have found connections to sexually aggressive behaviour.
Real love
It is this experience of sex that Tantra Revelations is attempting to change, taking on the deepest acts of intimacy away from the downwards energy of sex to the elevated energy of eros. Away from the often-unhealthy energy of pornography to an uplifting and erotic art form – a clear distinction to the initiated few but an unfamiliar one to the masses.
Pedro Vieira is one of the lead performers for Tantra Revelations, and what he describes is vastly different from the violent pounding that is too often perpetrated upon the female performers in the field of pornography.
“The first element is that there is real love between the male actor and the female actress, there is really a state of intimacy, a state of devotion, a state of adoration…a relationship,” he says.
Tantra Revelations’ films tell a story. It is apparent from the first day of the erotic film festival that each movie will not only give you a sublime and artistic portrayal of lovemaking but also impart some aspect of spiritual wisdom.
An example of this on Friday night of the festival was a retelling of the Snow White story; and if your head just went to a particular place involving a girl lost in the forest with seven small people, then you’re not the only one.
Fortunately, this was not the case. What is revealed to the audience instead, is an archetypal story of the journey of the human soul through seven erotic gateways that lead from spiritual youth to adulthood. The lovemaking on screen is real, never simulated, but artistically, not to mention tastefully, handled. The are no explicit shots, only softly erotic scenes.
It soon becomes apparent to the audience that trying to compare Revelations’ artistic offerings to pornography is like comparing the rude exercise book doodling of a teenage boy to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The festival attendees’ impressions range from slightly taken aback, through pleasantly surprised, to happy and uplifted.
Artist Ines Honfi in front of one of her pictures on sale at the festival. Image by Chris Armagon
“It’s a paradise that everyone would want to go to”
Vivienne Rush, 69, was enthusiastic about what she saw in the movies on Saturday morning. “It’s just extreme beauty and gentleness. I think that beauty is very uplifting.”
Rush wasn’t just describing the sympathetic backdrop and locations used in the films, she’s also speaking to the narrative thread of the stories and the way that the lovemaking itself is handled. Although she admits that some parts were slightly challenging to view, “maybe I still have some prejudices about the erotic being out in the open”.
Late on the Sunday evening the festival comes to an end, with many feeling that they have experienced something special.
When asked what he’d like men to take from the films, Pedro says that men can “perceive different states of how the man can relate to the woman”.
Currently, Tantra Revelations have a lot of teaching to do. But if the reaction of the crowd at October’s film festival is anything to go by, the softly erotic art form that carries a beautiful impact; they may just succeed in changing a few hearts and minds.
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